Last week the little stinker hit 5 months!

Just one month ago…

She’s getting so big 🙂

This month was full of gabbing, laughing, a HUGE interest in food, rolling, and not sleeping.

As soon as Zoe figured out that her mouth made sounds she’s been our little gabbing lady. She isn’t nearly as chatty when other people are around, but when it’s just me and Chris she just blabs and blabs and blabs and blabs. ESPECIALLY in the morning. She is so damn chatty in the morning, it is hilarious. She usually starts chit chatting with herself as soon as she wakes up, and when she sees that you’re awake she smiles so big, her whole body wiggles and she gets even more chatty. She’s been making a lot of new sounds with her mouth, including some sounds with consonants. It’s pretty cute to see her chat away with herself and with us. She sure does like it. I wonder who she gets that from… 🙂

She’s also laughing a lot more now too, which is a lot of fun. When she really gets the giggles it’s pretty hilarious. She especially loves it when she runs her hand over Chris’ stubble. She likes to feel people’s faces and one night she was feeling his and she felt the stubble and sort of giggled, so Chris took her hand and ran it across her face and she errupted into giggles. Since then, it’s a guarantee giggle fest

That fucking video makes me crack up every time. She also likes when you bounce all around, dance, make funny faces or just generally make yourself look like an idiot 😉 The sillier you look, the bigger of a giggle monster she becomes.

That girl is going to be an eater. She’ll definitely take after me on that one (my grandpa always jokes that I “can really put it away.” Food has always been very important to me). Whenever we eat, she just stares at us. She watches very intently. When we drink things she also watches very carefully. If you’ve got her on your lap while your drinking and you pick up a glass and bring it to your mouth she will try and stop you, grab the glass, and bring it to her mouth and try to drink. She’ll grab at forks too. We’re trying to hold off on really getting into food until the 6 month mark, but we have given in and let her try things. It’s fucking hilarious. She really wants to try everything and so we’ve given her different flavors of things and she seems super into it. The other night we were out at sushi and Chris let her suck on a piece of ginger and she seemed very intrigued. I couldn’t believe it. She’s pretty good at drinking water already and will drink from a glass if you tip it for her. That little one man, she will be an expert eater in no time, I love it!

Zoe has also become an expert roller. She’s gotten good at seeing something she wants (that isn’t too far away) and rolling over to get it. She especially can’t wait to get her hands on wrapping paper (I’ve got all my Christmas shopping done, yeah!)

Tummy to back, back to tummy, she’s gotten really good at it. Sometimes she lands with quite the thud and looks at us really surprised, but I just say, “yay!!!” and she gets over being startled. Phew. She’s not quite able to sit up on her own yet, but if you prop her up between your legs and lean her against you, she’s good.

Unfortunately this month has also been full of not sleeping. Boooo. We still don’t really know what it is (though I think we can rule out teething), so I think it might just be some good old fashioned sleep regression. Oh well. Chris and I were really pulling our hair out, so we talked to a few people and decided that it might be time for her to sleep on her tummy. She was getting out of the swaddle every night (even the velcro baby straight jacket), but she could not sleep on her back with her arms, or even one arm, out. We tried just one arm out at a time and she was having none of it. Finally, we decided it might just be tummy time. I know some of you will really not be ok with that, and most doctors do not advise it, but because she is really good at rolling, we came to the decision that it would be ok. The first could of nights were pretty iffy and we swaddled in the middle of the night, but for the last few days she’s been great. Hooray! She still wakes up once or twice, but mostly she just wants to eat. In fact, our doctor thinks we should introduce food now because she’s such a big baby he thinks she might just want more to eat than what my boobs give her. Chris and I are going to try and hold off on really introducing food for another 1-3 weeks, but we’ll see how things go

She’s also pretty adventurous, which is a lot of fun. She loves to be slid and wiggled around when she’s playing on the ground. And when she’s in your arms she loves to be hung upside-down and tossed around a bit (of course all safely within her size and body control). And she’s always loved to be overwhelmed with kisses. You cover her face in kisses and make silly noises and she gets a big ol’ smile. We think she might be learning to give kisses herself because she has a habit of holding your face with her hands and then putting her face against yours. We think she might be thinking she’s giving a kiss because then she’ll pull her head away from yours. Either way, it’s pretty damn cute.

She’s definitely a happy baby. Lots of smiles 🙂 She still (and I think always will) just completely LOVE going places. I make sure to take her out at least for a walk/run every day, and 95% of the time we also run errands. She just really loves to be out and about. I was joking with my neighbor that I should start a grocery shopping service because sometimes I run out of errands I need to do, but I want to make sure to take her to some entertaining place each day. Soon I may be making my way to the zoo and some local parks.

I love that little stinker so much 🙂